Heads You Lose (11 page)

He summoned a conference in the library.

Now, indeed, terror reigned at Pigeonsford House. Pendock sought out Lady Hart. “I think you should take the girls away at once.”

“I want to, Pen. Will the police let us go?”

The police most emphatically would not let them go. Cockrill, gathering the household round the library fire, spoke to them there, his face quite grey and his air of jaunty efficiency all gone. “No one must leave this house. I have sent for more men and each of you will be guarded night and day.”

“I’m leaving this house at once,” said Lady Hart steadily. “I’m taking my granddaughters away. You’ve no right to keep them here, and it isn’t safe.”

“You will stay here, Lady Hart, and your granddaughters with you. I assure you they shall be safe.”

“I will not stay here,” cried the old lady with rising anger. “After what has happened—after this threat to Fran—I’m not going to let them stay here.”

“Excuse me, Madame; you and the young ladies are staying.”

“But why—
why
?” she cried, all her anger and defiance breaking down against the wall of his stony determination. “Why should you keep them here? For God’s sake let me take them away from this place, or let them go alone—but let them go. Dear Cockie, let them go! Why must you keep them here?”

He did not answer her or meet her tearful eyes, but he undid a package that he held loosely wrapped up in his hand and took out a woollen scarf. “Have any of you seen this before?”

“It’s Pippi’s,” said Venetia, leaning forward to look at it. She added suddenly, and her voice went weak with horror: “It’s all over blood!”

Fran put her hand to her mouth: “Oh, God, I feel sick…”

“Yes, it’s all over blood,” said Cockrill calmly, folding it up and replacing it in its paper. “Now—each of you in turn: when did you see it last?”

They had seen it when Pippi came up to dinner the night before, wrapped round her head and tucked about her throat; and again when she had put it on to go home through the snow. “After that she lent it to my housemaid to come back in,” said Pendock, shuddering away from the parcel in the Inspector’s hand. “I took it from the girl in the hall and put it in a drawer. I meant to give it back to Miss le May to-day.”

“Who knew you had put it in the drawer?”

“Well, everybody knew,” said Pendock doubtfully.

“Mr. Pendock came in and told us,” said Henry from the arm of Venetia’s chair. “He said he had put it in the little drawer in the hall-stand, and if any of us saw her next day—to-day that is—would we see that she got it back.”

“You all heard him say this?”

They had all heard. “What about the maid, Mr. Pendock? Did you tell the maid?”

Gladys was sent for and arrived in the safe conduct of Constable Wright, but was so genuinely shaken by the whole dreadful affair that she forbore to make any exhibition of herself. She replied in a subdued voice that the master had told her to hand the scarf over to him, and that she had then left the hall and had no idea what had happened to it. “Innercent Girl questioned by Brutal Police,” thought Gladys drearily, scurrying back to the kitchen.

“What else was kept in this drawer?” said Cockie, when she had gone.

“As it happens there was nothing else in it.”

“Were there any other scarves on the stand?”

“Two or three,” said Pendock indifferently.

“So you see.” He fixed them with those beady brown eyes that now seemed inimical to them all. “The girl’s scarf was in a certain drawer. Six of you knew where it was. Her murderer ignored all the other scarves on the hall-stand, went to the drawer where her own scarf had been put, took that out, and used it to—well, he used it. Why he took it—we don’t know. Who took it—we don’t know. But only six people had the knowledge that that scarf was in that drawer. Now, Lady Hart, you can see why three of those people are not to be given permission to leave this house.”

She struggled to her feet, angry again, and frightened and bewildered. “Surely you don’t think that one of these girls—one of these young girls…”

“How should I know?” said Cockie, shrugging his shoulders.

“I should think you would only have to look at them,” said James suddenly, opening his sleepy brown eyes and looking at them himself.

The Inspector looked too, and very pretty and fresh and sweet they were. “Supposing we let them go,” he said to James, “because they are such particularly charming creatures. Who shall we send with them? Are we to suppose that they won’t be safe with their grandmother?—of course not. So she goes too. But then, Mrs. Gold’s legal guardian is her husband, and will she allow us to suggest that she would be in danger from him? Oh no! So that leaves yourself and Mr. Pendock. But I have known Mr. Pendock for years, and respected him and liked him for years. So that leaves you. With your help, Captain Nicholl, we are working pretty fast. I’d better let you all go and start combing the countryside for a convenient tramp.”

“Ah, yes, what about the tramp?” cried Fran eagerly, trotting off after this timely hare. “Was it him that killed poor Miss Morland?”

Cockie raised a cynical eyebrow. “What do you think?”

“
I
d’know,” she said, abashed. “Didn’t he? You said he’d confessed; you thought yourself, last night, that it was him.”

Cockie ignored this hardy thrust. He said instead: “Apart from the butler, only six of you knew about Francesca’s hat; only six of you knew about the le May girl’s scarf. And last night, while Miss le May was being murdered, the ‘tramp’ was safely locked up in the Torrington gaol.”

Pendock was standing with his back to the fire, rocking gently from his toes to his heels with a monotonous regularity. “Pen, for God’s sake stand still!” cried Lady Hart. She added immediately: “I’m sorry, darling; my nerves have all gone phut.”

He sat on the arm of her chair and took her plump hand in his. “Don’t be too worried; it’ll all be all right.” And to Cockrill he suggested coolly: “Perhaps you could explain how any of these dear people could have killed Miss le May? At just before eleven I saw her home; till after half-past eleven they were all together playing Vingt-et-un in the drawing-room; from midnight onwards your men were all over the place. That leaves less than half an hour in which any of them could have got the girl out of her house; done what was—done; come back here for the scarf, tied her up in it and got themselves to bed.”

“We can cut quite a few minutes out of that programme by supposing that the murderer took the scarf with him when he came out of this house,” suggested Cockie.

“He never came out of this house,” cried Pendock angrily.

“Then how did he know where you had put the scarf?”

He turned his head from side to side, away from the horrible truth. “God knows—
I
don’t.”

“Don’t you? And yet you’re the most likely person to know, Mr. Pendock, aren’t you?” said Cockie swiftly. “In your premises just now you skirted rather lightly over the fact that
you
weren’t playing Vingt-et-un in the drawing-room.
You
would have had more than twenty minutes, Mr. Pendock, to do ‘what was done’ and tie the girl up in the scarf—wouldn’t you?”

“He didn’t skirt over it at all,” cried Fran passionately. “He wasn’t talking about himself; he was only thinking of us. Of course he didn’t do it—of
course
Pen didn’t do it.”

“How do you know?” said Cockie, with patient sarcasm.

“Because of the telephone call,” cried Fran triumphantly. “What about that? You’d forgotten about that, hadn’t you? But it was definitely made, or at any rate started, while Pen was talking to us in the drawing-room. Now who made that call? There
was
somebody else in the house who might be the murderer. Pen couldn’t have made the call.”

The old man nodded his head at her and grinned. “All right, young lady. Well done.” He looked round at their hostile faces and perceived that in his own fear and anxiety he was alienating their sympathy with him. “Now, don’t let’s quarrel,” he said pacifically. “We want to help each other; I’m here to help you. If the murderer isn’t one of your number, well, of course, we must find him; if he
is
one of you, we must find him just the same—mustn’t we? Come on, let’s have a talk… I want you to give me some help.” He drew up a chair to the fire and sat down, leaning forward with a confidential air. “This Pippi le May—she was an actress, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” said Pendock, somewhat mollified.

“She came down here frequently in the summer?”

“Yes. She had for years. To tell you the truth, I think she reckoned it was a cheap holiday.”

“Miss Morland didn’t leave her anything that would now pass on to her next of kin, do you know?”

“She left her a pinchbeck bracelet and a painting of the Church Tower in Blossom Time,” said James, without enthusiasm.

Cockrill looked surprised. “You seem very well informed in the matter.”

“She told Pendock and myself yesterday afternoon as we were walking along the river bank,” said James.

“I see. Now you all knew her pretty well, I take it?”

“We met her almost every summer when we stayed here with Mr. Pendock,” said Lady Hart. “The young people used to bathe together and have picnics and so on. We knew her as well as that, but no better. Not intimately.”

“And Mr. Gold? You were not a member of the family in those days.”

“I never met her till last summer,” said Henry. “We spent the last week of our honeymoon here, Venetia and I, and I said ‘How d’you do’ to Pippi half a dozen times, and that was all. And of course I saw her yesterday.”

“And once in London,” said Venetia.

“Oh yes, if that counts. I met her one day in a tube, and walked as far as the theatre with her, and she promised to send me complimentary tickets for her show and never did.”

Pendock smiled. “She promised me complimentary tickets for her show with unfailing regularity for twelve or fifteen years, but I’ve never had one yet. I suppose she did it to everyone.”

“Yes, she did,” said James.

They all looked round at him, puzzled at the tone of his voice. “She promised tickets to you also, did she?” said Cockie, narrowing his little eyes.

James threw a coin into the air and caught it neatly. “Yes, she did. And what’s more she sent them, too.”

Cockie was not fond of James; he was irritated by his expressionless face and air of lazy calm, and by the knowledge that James could withdraw into some world of his own, and remain immune from blustering authority. He said nastily: “And how do you account for that? Why did she get them for you when she let other people down?”

“I suppose because she was my wife,” said James, and tossed his coin and neatly caught it again.

Cockrill was too much astonished, himself, to observe that, in the expressions of at least two of those present, surprise was absent. His first reaction was a slightly embarrassed review of the things he might have said about Pippi in James’s hearing. When this very human aspect had been dealt with, however, he was sufficiently in command of himself to request immediate silence and to instruct Constable Wright to take the party, excluding James, to the drawing-room; to remain there with them and to see that nobody spoke a word to anyone else. “I shall ask you, one by one, what you know about this,” said Cockie, quite dropping his air of friendly conspiracy, and he rubbed his thin hands together and thought: “A motive at last!”

They filed out of the room, Pendock very grave and anxious, Henry and Venetia bewildered, Fran looking back at James with a troubled face; but at the door Lady Hart swung suddenly and cried to the Inspector in a strangled, shaking voice: “Don’t think
I
knew anything about this!
I
knew nothing about it!” and turned upon Fran stricken and beseeching eyes. The constable put his hand on her arm and shut the door in her face.

A man followed Fran and Venetia on to the terrace and across the snow-covered lawn. In the far corner made by the intersection of the stream and the railway line the dark little hump of the summer-house was surrounded by small black figures that stood and jerked and ran about their mysterious duties. The sound of their voices carried sharply in the cold, clear air; the summer-house, which in the ordinary way one never noticed at all, seemed to obtrude its presence all over the grounds. Fran said distressfully: “Can’t we get out of the garden and go somewhere else? I can’t stick it here.”

“We could ask the man, I suppose.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” said Fran listlessly.

Venetia would dare anything for anyone she loved. She turned to the policeman behind them and said in her sweet, cool voice: “Could we possibly go for a walk, just over the fields? We could cross the railway line and go along the stream—do you think we might? It’s not very nice here…” She nodded vaguely in the direction of the summer-house.

The stream ran between two innocent fields. “I think you might go there, Miss,” said the constable kindly. “I’ll have to come along with you, and of course you mustn’t go far…” He stood looking down at them, a thick-set, powerful man; he was not one to imagine things, but really they put you in mind of the pictures of them refugees, with their pale faces and sorrowful eyes, and three-cornered scarves tied under their chins. “I’ll walk along be’ind you, Miss,” he said to Venetia.

They crossed the railway line, scrunching through the snow that lay piled against its banks, and cut across the field to where they had walked by the stream the day before. They did not touch each other, but they were very near in spirit with the curious kinship of the twin born. Fran said, speaking softly, so that their guardian might not hear: “I’m nearly frantic, darling; I’ve been pining all day to talk to you.”

“It’s all been so dreadful, Fran. Miss Morland, here, in the garden… you just can’t believe it, can you? And Pippi; killed like that, Fran, here at Pigeonsford. … I mean, we knew her so
well.
And oh, darling, what
is
all this about James? I can’t believe that he of all people—I’d have sworn that he was the most honest and truthful person one could possibly know; I can’t believe that he would make love to you and everything and all the time be married… and to Pippi le May…”